


visions are seldom all they seem

by badritual



Series: Exchange Fic [47]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Community: smut4smut, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inappropriate Use of the Force, It Was All A Dream (Or Was It?!), Nostalgia, Nostalgia Is A Trap, Sort of Sex Pollen But Sort of Not, That's Not How The Force Works, Time Travel Shenanigans, Time Travelling Ahsoka Tano, smut4smut 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:08:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: This spell—sold to her for an arm and a leg by a shopkeeper with strangely glinting eyes—had better work or she doesn’t know what she’ll do.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Exchange Fic [47]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705675
Comments: 11
Kudos: 103
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020, Wasn't Quite Expecting This (But I Loved It)





	visions are seldom all they seem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



> I threw some time travel, Sexy Force Magic, (sort of) sex pollen (but sort of not), and a sprinkling of the Hades/Persephone myth into a bag. Hope you enjoy this, LittleRaven!
> 
> I’m mentally shoving this into the Rebels timeline, a bit before Ahsoka and Vader’s fight, when she still thinks Anakin died. 
> 
> Thanks to my friend B for looking this over!
> 
>  **Additional Notes:** While the bulk of this story technically takes place during the _Clone Wars_ era, it's left a bit vague/ambiguous as to whether or not Ahsoka actually traveled back in time or if it was a fantasy/dream. You're free to interpret it how you wish!

Ahsoka settles on the cold stone floor of the cave and closes her eyes, resting her palms flat on her knees. This spell—sold to her for an arm and a leg by a shopkeeper with strangely glinting eyes—had better work or she doesn’t know what she’ll do. 

The shopkeeper had given her explicit instructions, even jotted them down on a scroll—who even uses scrolls these days!—and told her if she deviated, even a little bit, from the ancient words there could be dire consequences. Ahsoka had been fairly certain the shopkeeper was trying to pull one over on her, putting on a show to entertain her and line his pockets with her hard-won credits. 

She’s not too worried. _Too_ being the operative word, of course.

Ahsoka recites the incantation the shopkeeper had given her. “ _Masters of Time and Space, I reach out to you with open palms. Please heed my cries. Draw me into your embrace. Enfold me in the Force. And let me rend and restitch the tapestry of time. Let me undo a terrible, grievous wrong._ ”

Nothing happens. Ahsoka slumps against the cave wall and opens her eyes. Of course nothing is happening. The shopkeeper had sold her a fake spell. 

When she reaches out with her mind, envisions touching the strands of her bond with Anakin, there’s nothing. He’s still—gone. 

Tears of frustration well in her eyes but she blinks them back, furiously. 

“Blast you,” she mutters, scattering the candles and durasteel bowl she’d set out for the spell. This is the last time she trusts a shopkeeper she found through the Shadownet. 

A gust of wind rushes through the cave, blotting out the remaining candles and chilling Ahsoka to her core. Frowning, she grabs one of the lightsabers clipped at her waist and ignites it. The hum of the ’saber is like music to her ears, and the beam of pure white light emanating from the hilt Illuminates the dark, dank cave in a warm glow.

A shadowy figure is in this cave with her.

Ahsoka lets out a startled gasp and drops the ’saber to the ground with a clatter. The blade blinks out, leaving darkness to fall over her like a shroud. 

“W-who’s there?” Ahsoka stammers.

There’s no answer. When she reaches out through the Force, she senses nothing. No signs of life issue from this massive, towering figure made of shadows. No inhale-exhale of breath. No rise and fall of its chest. 

Ahsoka wonders if it truly is a creature of shadows. An illusion, a bit of Dark Side trickery meant to scare her. 

“Never should’ve come to this blasted cave,” she mutters under her breath as she grapples in the dark for her ’saber.

The shadows move closer, gathering into the shape of a person. A man, perhaps. 

Ahsoka backs up until her shoulders hit the wall of the cave. 

“Who are you?” she calls out, even though she knows she’s not going to get any answers from this thing. 

The shadows lift an arm toward her. Its hand creeps over the rutted stone toward her.

Ahsoka squeezes her eyes shut, stomach sinking like a stone in water. She’d always imagined that when she died, she’d go out fighting, twin ’sabers clutched in her hands. With Anakin by her side. It turns out, she’s likely going to die a coward, trembling and cowering against cold, unforgiving stone, completely and utterly alone. 

Her kind aren’t meant to live alone, and they certainly aren’t meant to die alone either. Fresh tears prick Ahsoka’s eyes and this time, she lets them fall.

Something brushes softly against her forehead and she lifts her head. 

A burst of sunlight stabs into her eyes, and then a face hovers over hers, eyes peering into her own.

“Ahsoka! Ahsoka, you’re all right.” A familiar voice, a voice she hasn’t heard since she was a child, wraps around her like a comforting embrace.

It—it cannot be. And yet it _is_.

“M-Master Kenobi?” Ahsoka stammers, struggling to sit up.

“You gave us quite a scare, young one!” Obi-Wan beams at her and gives her an affectionate pat on the head.

Ahsoka frowns and glances about. She’s not in that dark, lonely cave anymore. And she’s pretty sure she’s been thrown back in time, to her days with Anakin and Obi-Wan. 

The thought pops into her head, unbidden, and she’s almost afraid to think it. Where is Anakin?

As if to answer the question Ahsoka hadn’t yet dared to ask, a door slides open and Anakin emerges, ducking his head to avoid bashing it onto a low-hanging partition. 

“Snips,” Anakin says, sounding delighted to see her. “You’re awake.”

“What happened?” Ahsoka asks, groggily, rubbing fists into her eyes.

“You took ill,” Anakin says, slumping in a nearby chair with a weary sigh. “You’ve been out for three days.”

Ahsoka frowns. “Where were we?”

“Alkassar,” Obi-Wan pipes up, drawing away from Ahsoka to cross his arms over his chest. “We received word that Separatists might be hiding amongst the natives and were dispatched to investigate.”

“No Separatists,” Anakin mutters, unhappily. “But we did find a nest of poisonous nekroos.”

“Nekroos?” Ahsoka asks.

Obi-Wan holds up a small disk and presses a button. A holoimage of an adorably fluffy creature pops up. “This is a nekroo.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka gasps, “it’s adorable!”

“And deadly. Or nearly deadly,” Anakin points out, touching her arm lightly with his gloved hand.

Ahsoka glances down at his fingers, where they’re splayed out over her skin. Anakin pulls his hand back, looking ashamed, as if she caught him doing something untoward.

“Are we headed back to the Jedi Council then?” Ahsoka asks.

“We’ve been sent on another mission,” Obi-Wan says, giving her a rueful smile. “The ocean planet of Camissos. We’ve been asked to infiltrate a royal gala as members of a rival kingdom.”

Ahsoka feels her frown deepening. She doesn’t remember this mission from her youth. It could be that she’s forgotten it. Or it could be that she’s still in that cave, somehow. Maybe the creature made of shadows is showing her something that could have been, in order to taunt her with her memories of Anakin and Obi-Wan.

“Snips? You okay?” Anakin asks, softly, getting up and moving over to the examining table she’s sitting on.

“I’m fine, Master,” she says, offering him a smile she hopes is reassuring.

“Here,” Anakin says, glancing away from her as he thrusts a pile of clothing into her lap. “I wasn’t exactly sure what styles you favor. But there must be something in this pile you can wear.”

Ahsoka picks at the pile of clothing Anakin’s selected out for her, sorting through various tops, leggings, and skirts. “Master, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m fine with what I’ve got on.” She gestures to the slightly ill-fitting medbay tunic she’s been dressed in.

Anakin waves a hand at her, dismissively. “It wasn’t any trouble at all.” He pauses, dropping his arm, growing yet more awkward. “I’m glad you’re okay, Snips.”

“Me too, Master.” Ahsoka grabs a sea-green tunic and a pair of black leggings, then shoots Anakin and Obi-Wan meaningful looks.

Getting the hint, they slip out of Ahsoka’s room to let her change.

Ahsoka tugs off the medbay tunic and shimmies into her new clothing, then rushes off to find them.

*** 

Ahsoka has no idea why she’s been thrust back in time, nor what the shadows intend for her to do now that she’s here. If she could just remember this period of her life, she might have some clue how to proceed. And if this is a fictional memory—something conjured by dark magic—well… 

Ahsoka pats the solid, sturdy lightsabers at her waist for reassurance.

She finds Anakin and Obi-Wan in the cockpit, polishing off some rations, trapped in a philosophical discussion about one thing or another. Ahsoka sits in her seat behind them and tries to look appropriately _young_. She’s not sure she manages, though, when she realizes her movement’s caught Obi-Wan’s eye.

He seems to puzzle over her before giving her a nod hello. 

“You must be hungry, Ahsoka. Here.” Obi-Wan holds out his uneaten rations to her.

Ahsoka munches away, while her Master and _his_ Master continue their philosophical conversation. They soon drift into talk of holodramas—Anakin favors the romantic ones, while Obi-Wan prefers war dramas—and the upcoming mission. 

“The royal court of Camissos is, shall we say, a bit…” Obi-Wan trails off, struggling for the proper wording.

“Unusual,” Anakin cuts in. “Well, perhaps, not to the Camissosians themselves.”

“Stop beating around the bush and come out with it,” Ahsoka says.

“We must pose as a king and his two spouses,” Obi-Wan sighs.

“Spouses,” Ahsoka echoes.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, dryly, tapping a button on the panel in front of him. A holoimage of a handsome, middle-aged man in rich, sumptuous clothing flickers into being. “This is King Pardis the Magnificent, the third of his name. And these—” Obi-Wan scrolls to faintly glowing images of two equally decadently dressed women. “—are his queens. Queen Sadezere, the older of the two queens. And Queen Kiwene, the newest addition to his menagerie.”

“So, I’m to be your…” Ahsoka trails off.

“Consort, if we’re getting technical.” Obi-Wan strokes his ginger beard. “I’m King Kesham of Ilwar, the Great and Terrible. Anakin is King Taqwa the Golden. And Ahsoka will be posing as Consort Visyana.”

“Why am I only a consort and not a queen?” Ahsoka huffs, petulantly.

“Because you are not yet old enough to be crowned a queen,” Anakin points out, amusement lightly coloring his tone. “Don’t worry. We won’t need to prove we’re actually a proper triad or anything. The Jedi Council was quite forceful on the subject, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Ahsoka quips, folding her arms over her chest and slouching in her seat.

She’s only been back a matter of minutes and she’s already feeling like a child. Anakin’s amusement is coming off as vaguely…paternalistic, which chafes at her like a pebble in the bottom of her shoe.

“Don’t worry, Snips. This mission isn’t only about, well, the mission at hand. We’ll be able to do some sightseeing too, while we’re in Camissos,” Anakin assures her, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

Ahsoka doesn’t want to seem completely ungrateful, but what she’d really like to do is throw a tantrum. She can’t help but wonder if her younger self is influencing her moods in some way. Ahsoka hasn’t thrown a tantrum since her days in the crèche, though, so she only screws a smile onto her face.

“Of course, Master,” she says, blandly.

***

Camissos spares no expense when it comes to honored guests, even guests from rival kingdoms. No sooner have their feet touched ground than King Pardis’ courtier droid ushers them off to a nearby castle. 

(“A humble abode,” a courtier droid tells them, as she slips Ahsoka free of her goldthread greatcoat.

Ahsoka looks up and around, drinking in the breadth and expanse of the palace that is to be their temporary home. Anakin and Obi-Wan are nearby, chatting with a guard in a funny plumed helmet.

 _Humble, my eye,_ she thinks.)

After they’ve been situated, the courtier droid returns to greet them with much pomp and circumstance.

“King Pardis the Magnificent wishes to formally welcome you to the Court of Camissos,” the droid recites, in a tinny monotone. She hobbles closer, on stiff, jointless legs. “He offers you a gift as an example of his generosity.”

Ahsoka and Anakin look over at one another and share a wordless thought, through the scrunching of their brows and the twist of their mouths: _Generosity, huh? More like ego._

A second droid rolls a covered hovertray into the receiving room they’ve gathered in. A drumroll sounds from somewhere—when Ahsoka looks around, she can’t see anything—as the droid whisks the sheet away to reveal three red berries on a gleaming, iridescent platter.

“What’re those?” Ahsoka questions the droid, pointing at the berries with mild suspicion.

“A gift,” the droid says, unhelpfully. 

“I’m famished,” Anakin says, snatching one of the berries in his gloved hand. “Haven’t had anything to eat but rations since we left Coruscant.”

Ahsoka fights the urge to slap the berry out of Anakin’s hand. “We shouldn’t eat that fruit until we know what it is, Master,” she informs him through gritted teeth.

Anakin rolls his eyes at her, indulgently. “I highly doubt King Pardis would give us anything hazardous to our health, young one. You’re far too suspicious.”

“I think your padawan’s onto something, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, giving Ahsoka an approving nod. “I’d hold off just yet. I’m going to do some reconnaissance. We _are_ here on a mission, after all.”

With that, Obi-Wan walks off in the direction the droid had gone.

Anakin scoops up the other berries and glances at Ahsoka. “Aren’t you hungry, Snips? You hardly touched your rations.” He holds one of the berries out to her. 

It glistens in the center of his gloved palm, as if beckoning to her. Ahsoka reaches for it; she really _is_ hungry. But something stops her. Why does she feel as if she’ll become trapped if she eats this offering?

Shaking the unsettling feeling off her skin, Ahsoka takes the berry and lets it roll around in the cup of her palm. Anakin pops his onto his tongue and crushes it between his teeth, staining his tongue and lips bright red. It almost looks as if he’s bleeding. 

“It’s delicious,” Anakin exclaims. “You really have to try it, Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka can’t resist the playful gleam in her Master’s eye. She pops the berry into her mouth and pierces it with her fangs. Her mouth floods with a tangy, pleasant flavor that leaves her tongue and lips tingling.

“Oh,” Ahsoka says, with a startled laugh. “It’s tingly.”

Anakin holds up the last berry. “I don’t think Obi-Wan will mind if we share this last one.” 

Ahsoka looks at the berry, hungrily, her stomach roiling. She’s never felt this hungry before. “I don’t think he’ll mind at all.”

Anakin bites down, sucking some of the juice from the berry before offering the rest to Ahsoka. He looks silly, juice staining his lips, which are pulled into a grin. She doesn’t remember ever seeing Anakin smile this much when she was his padawan. 

It’s nice, actually. It’s nice and it makes her chest feel like it’s going to cave in.

Ahsoka sucks the rest of the juice from the berry and then devours the skin as well, sucking the lingering remains of it off of her fingers. 

“Might’ve been just three small berries, but I feel as if I’ve just devoured a ten-course meal,” Anakin exclaims, swiping his gloved hand across his stained lips. 

But the stain remains. 

And there’s a new feeling roiling in Ahsoka’s stomach now. The sudden sharp flash of desire to lick his lips clean.

She can’t help but frown. Sure, Ahsoka had had some inappropriate thoughts and feelings about her Master, a lot of padawans did. It was the nature of working so closely with another person, often one you so greatly admired. Mostly, she just roughly elbowed them aside and shoved them back into the lockbox in her mind, where all the other un-Jedilike thoughts went.

But this—this is a new kind of hunger. 

“Let’s find Obi-Wan,” Anakin speaks up, his tone sharp as knives and his eyes frantic as he refuses to look her head-on.

Ahsoka wonders—but he wouldn’t. She knows she’s not supposed to _know_ , but she _knows_ about Anakin and Padmé. He doesn’t feel for Ahsoka how she feels for him. It’s impossible.

They set off in search of Obi-Wan, the silence between them growing heavier by the minute.

***

Obi-Wan is nowhere to be found. 

Ahsoka and Anakin soon find themselves in a fragrant green garden, with tangles of trees and flowering vines and flame-red bushes as tall as Anakin himself looming overhead.

Ahsoka darts from flower to flower, sniffing the petals and touching the soft, velvety leaves. 

“We really ought to find Obi-Wan and come up with a plan,” Anakin points out, but his languid tone tells her he’s in no hurry to leave this place.

“It’s magnificent,” Ahsoka cries out, throwing her arms in the air and spinning like a top. “It’s so _beautiful_ , Anakin. I’ve never seen so much _green_.”

Anakin chuckles warmly nearby. “It really is lovely,” he says.

Ahsoka stops spinning, but the garden—and Anakin—keep whirling around her. “I think I’d like to stay here. Forever. Just roll around in the grass and smell all the flowers.”

“We should do that, then,” he says. “Stay here, I mean. Together.”

Anakin’s gloved hand comes to rest on her back, lightly. Ahsoka leans into the touch, solid and warm and cool and unfamiliar all at once. There’s a flash of red and the faint stench of burning flesh, too, but a swift breeze whisks the odor away, replacing it with the scent of berries and blossoms.

“We could,” Ahsoka says, standing up on the tips of her toes and reaching out to brush her fingertips over a flowering vine. 

The vine turns into a snake which snaps at her with long, glistening fangs. Anakin pulls her back, securing an arm around her waist. 

“Careful, Snips,” he warns her, enfolding her into his side. “Gardens are lovely places, but there’s always the hint of danger around the corner.”

Ahsoka presses against his chest. “We’ll protect each other,” she says. “I’ll keep you safe, Master.”

“I’ve looked all over for you,” Anakin murmurs, his breath blowing hot across Ahsoka’s cheek as he presses his face into her montrals. His hand tightens across her stomach, almost possessively. “And now I have you. You’re mine.”

Ahsoka feels light and airy still, but there’s something in Anakin’s words—the hint of steel and smoke, the hiss of a serpent—that drags her down. That chills her. Still, she clings onto him, unwilling to look too deeply. She presses her hand over his on her belly.

“We have each other,” Ahsoka says. 

“Yes, indeed. We do,” Anakin agrees, clasping her chin, turning her head. His mouth finds hers, his tongue thrusts between her lips, and he consumes her.

Ahsoka slips her arms around his neck, expecting her muscles to burn with the effort of reaching him. But it’s so—too—easy for her to pull him close, to feed him warm kisses like succor. Anakin’s grip tightens on her waist and he deepens their already deep kiss, probing her mouth with his tongue—probing her mind with a hand made of shadows—

A memory flickers to the surface of Ahsoka’s clouded mind, but she brushes it away. She feels safe and secure here, locked with Anakin, their bodies tangled like the vines that wind around these trembling trees. 

Anakin drags her to the grass and looms over her, his cape fluttering in the wind. He is beautiful, his hair falling in soft waves around his face, his lips still stained red with crushed berries. His eyes are a deep, endless well Ahsoka could lose herself in. 

She reaches up and tugs him down, closer, until he’s on top of her. 

“I missed you,” she whispers into his mouth. 

“I’m here,” he says, his voice thick and rough with—she thinks—emotion. “Give yourself to me, Ahsoka.”

Something about how he says her name—but the thought flickers away before Ahsoka can grab hold of it. She tightens her hold on Anakin instead.

Ahsoka can’t bear the thought of losing him again—again?—so she responds with a tight nod. _Yes,_ she says in the recesses of her mind, _anything. Ask me and I’ll give you anything you want_.

Anakin tosses off the cape, and then his vestments—part of his costume as King Taqwa the Golden—follow. Soon, he’s completely bare, kneeling in front of Ahsoka as if in supplication, head bowed. 

Ahsoka bends down and touches a kiss to the crown of his curls. She reaches up and, with nimble fingers, slowly begins to undo the stays of her gown. Anakin presses his cheek against her hip as she frees herself from the gown and lets it pool at her bare feet in a puddle of silk.

The wind kicks up again, whistling with a note of warning. Ahsoka feels reckless, though. And untouchable. Nothing can get to her, not with Anakin by her side. 

He sinks into the grass with her, rolling her under him and pinning by her wrists. 

“This garden is ours,” Anakin tells her, loosening his grip on her so she can wind her arms around him and thread her fingers through his hair. “Call for me and I’ll find you amongst the grass and flowers.”

Ahsoka draws him down, into another kiss. Anakin’s hand draws down her side, to her hip. His fingers drag between her legs, finding her wet, wanting. 

Ahsoka’s done this sort of thing before—usually one-and-done, utterly forgettable encounters—but never with anyone she genuinely _cared_ about. She’s had her share of missed opportunities. If she cared to look any deeper—which she doesn’t, thank you very much—she might find some stones to overturn and analyze. 

But she likes her life, such as it is. She likes what she does. Nothing gets Ahsoka revved up like a battle that doesn’t seem, on the outset, to be winnable. The supposedly lost causes. 

Maybe that’s why she wants Anakin so badly right now.

“Are you sure?” Anakin asks, as he drags his finger down the length of her, through the gathering wetness.

“Yes,” Ahsoka says. “I am.”

Anakin parts her with his fingers, pushing them into her almost tentatively. It’s somehow both too much and not enough; she needs more but fears she might burst into flame with it. 

Anakin guides his fingers deeper and Ahsoka loses herself to his touch, lets the feeling of being filled by him wash over her. She rolls her hips against him, taking his fingers deeper, wishing it was his cock she was straining and squeezing on. 

Anakin’s thumb finds the center of her pleasure and he begins rubbing it as he strokes his fingers deeper. She feels him, hard and leaking, pressing into her thigh as he thrusts his fingers. Deeper and deeper he goes, twisting and flexing, withdrawing and then pushing back in. Ahsoka grinding down to meet his upthrust, her arms locked around his neck. 

“I need more,” she whispers against his ear.

“Then that is what you shall have,” Anakin whispers back.

He slides his fingers free of her, leaving a trail of wetness on her skin. She feels him fumbling against her, hips shifting. He rubs against her, between her cleft, not daring to enter her just yet. 

Ahsoka wonders if he’ll ask her if she’s taken contraceptives. She doesn’t even know if pregnancy is a possibility wherever— _whenever_ —she is. But he doesn’t ask. He nudges between her legs, lining himself up with her entrance. 

“Remember this place after you’ve gone,” Anakin says, punctuating each word with a kiss. “Remember me as I am.”

“Where do you think I’m going after this, Anakin?” she asks, laughing softly. 

Anakin slides home, sucking her breath out of her lungs and the words off the tip of her tongue. He fills her so completely, she can’t see where she ends and he begins. It’s like they’re two minds, two souls, in one body. 

Ahsoka clings to him as he pulls out of her, bracing himself over her, before pressing back in.

She tries to find his eyes, to search out the bright sky-blue, but he won’t look at her as he fucks her. She touches her palm to his cheek, laughing, turning his face toward her. When they meet gazes, his eyes appear almost like liquid gold to her against the setting sun. 

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Ahsoka murmurs, brushing the back of her hand against his cheek.

Anakin gathers her closer and seals his mouth over hers—to shut her up, she thinks—and begins thrusting his hips into her, roughly. As if chasing after something. After Ahsoka, perhaps.

Ahsoka clutches at him, digging her nails into his bare skin. When she gets her mouth on his shoulder, she bites down, leaving an imprint of her fangmarks on his skin.

Anakin’s fleshless, inhuman hand finds its way between them, and the cool durasteel is a shock against her skin as it begins rubbing between her legs. Ahsoka’s hips stutter against the sleek, cold metal as she attempts to flee his touch as much as she tries to seek it out. 

In the end, though, she gives into him as she always knew she would. She rubs against his artificial hand, and rides out the waves of pleasure that surge through her as he teases her sensitive flesh. Anakin’s damp hair presses against her cheek as he hunches over her, and she draws in a breath, filling her lungs with the scent of sweat and the lingering odor of seared flesh, the sour tang of bacta, and something else. Something dark and maleficent, spreading like an oil-black stain through his soul. 

Ahsoka squeezes her eyes shut, digs her nails into his skin deep enough to draw blood, and chases after what only Anakin can give her. 

“Come for me, Ahsoka,” Anakin murmurs, that darkness threading through his words. He clamps his hand around her throat, squeezing lightly. “Give yourself to me, completely.”

Ahsoka arches against Anakin, still clutching at his shoulders, as if trying to pull him deeper. “Yes, _yes_ ,” she breathes out, her voice barely more than a wisp. 

Right now, with Anakin buried deep inside her, his heartbeat pulsing alongside hers, Ahsoka thinks she’d do anything Anakin asked of her. Kriff, she’d cut down the moons of Camissos and blot out all the stars in the night sky if he asked that of her. 

Ahsoka shatters underneath him, crumbling into pieces under his rough touch and insistent thrusts. She feels him go still over her as she comes apart, again and again, crashing against him like a violent tide drawn by the gravity of a greedy moon. His hand rests on her side, heavy and warm, while the metal one is still trapped between their waists. 

She reaches up again, fingers stumbling across his face, trailing to his lips. She feels his breath on her fingertips, coming in short, stuttering gasps as he holds himself completely still. Waiting for her.

Ahsoka feels, oddly, like they’ve stopped chasing after one another for a moment. They’ve finally caught each other. She wraps her hands around the back of his neck and tugs him back down to kiss him again. 

Anakin shudders against her and then, with a groan torn from the depths of him, he pulls away. She feels empty, suddenly. Bereft. 

Wet warmth spills over her thighs and when she opens her eyes, she catches a glimpse of Anakin stroking himself savagely with his metal hand. 

Ahsoka closes her eyes and luxuriates in the grass, still able to feel the warmth of that day’s dying sun splash across her face. The setting sun suffuses her with a swelling sense of—something. Peace, maybe. A peace she hasn’t felt since she was a suckling clasped at the teat of her wetnurse.

Anakin slumps beside her with a sigh. “This garden,” he murmurs, very near her ear. “Let’s never leave this place, Ahsoka.”

Ahsoka rolls her head until it finds Anakin’s shoulder. She finds his metal hand and laces their fingers together. “ _Can_ we stay here forever? Won’t Obi-Wan come looking for us? Or the Jedi Council?”

“Just say it and I’ll make it so they never do.” Anakin’s voice is edged with a darkness she’s only felt in snatches, glimpses. 

But she has felt it. Sensed it. That stain in his soul. 

“We should get back. We’re here on a mission, after all,” she says, sitting up and casting about for the ornate costume of Consort Visyana.

Anakin picks up her gown—fragile, spun gold—and hands it to her. Ahsoka takes it, wordlessly, and pulls it down over her head. The thin fabric clings to her and does nothing to hide her body, which is probably the point. Her belt lies in the grass a few yards away and Anakin flicks his fingers, dropping it into Ahsoka’s lap. Ahsoka laughs delightedly and wraps the braided leather around her waist, while Anakin shoves his fingers through his hair and tries to make himself look a bit more respectable.

Ahsoka bends down and plucks a flower free. She stands up on her toes and tucks it behind Anakin’s ear.

“Very nice, King Taqwa the Golden,” Ahsoka teases him, vaulting back onto the tips of her toes to press a chaste kiss against his cheek. 

Anakin smiles at her, his blue eyes catching the embers of the setting sun, glittering with shades of orange and gold. “And you look lovely enough to feast upon, Consort Visyana.” Anakin bows deeply before her. 

Ahsoka links her arm with Anakin’s and they head out of the fragrant garden in search of Obi-Wan.

***

Ahsoka starts feeling a bit more clearheaded the farther they get from the garden, And the more she thinks about her encounter with Anakin, the stranger she feels about it. The fragrant scent of flowers lingers on her skin, she thinks. Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to notice, though. And Anakin is so adept at pretending nothing’s amiss; if Ahsoka hadn’t known any better she might think Anakin had simply forgotten about their stolen moment together. 

Ahsoka can’t forget. Not that she’d want to, though. It had been a lovely detour. 

King Pardis is a most generous host, lavishing them with tours of his many palaces. He even takes them to his stables, where he informs them he breeds a rare species of orbak. Ahsoka presses close to one of the creatures while King Pardis discusses things of a kingly nature with Obi-Wan and Anakin, cupping the animal’s face in her palms. The orbak is distressed—Ahsoka senses she’s uncomfortable around unfamiliar faces—and reaches out through the Force to soothe her. 

When they’re done touring the king’s palaces, they return to their castle for dinner. 

Anakin flops onto a couch and puts his feet up on a nearby antigrav table. Obi-Wan gives him a disapproving look, but he leaves his feet where they are.

“I thought we could discuss what each of us has uncovered since we set down on Camissos,” Obi-Wan says, joining Anakin on the couch and knocking his feet off the table. 

Ahsoka and Anakin glance over at one another. A question forms in Ahsoka’s mind: _should we tell him about the garden?_

Anakin shakes his head at her, lips thinning. Ahsoka nods and stays silent.

“Nothing, you two? Really?” Obi-Wan sighs. “What did you do all that time you were gone?”

“Sight-seeing,” Ahsoka says. It’s not quite a lie. 

“Hm.” Obi-Wan makes a pensive noise. “Well, I’ve found something that could prove vital to our mission.”

Obi-Wan starts droning on about what he’s found, but Ahsoka finds her mind drifting back to the garden. And the three red berries. She finds herself yearning—for what, she isn’t sure. She glances out the window at the rapidly approaching night and the sprinkling of stars scattered across the sky like diadems. 

When she lifts a hand and presses her fingers to her lips, she can still feel Anakin’s kiss. 

Her body still remembers the weight of his hands on her. 

Obi-Wan’s voice sounds distant now. And when Anakin speaks, his voice sounds as if it’s underwater. 

Ahsoka turns, reaching for his hand. Her fingers go through him and his image ripples like water—

With a rasping gasp, Ahsoka sits up ramrod straight. The cold of the cave floor has seeped through her clothing, into her skin. There’s ice sludging through her veins now, chilling her from the inside out. 

When Ahsoka reaches out, her lightsabers fly into her palms and she ignites them.

The shadow is still there. As if it’s been waiting for her all this time. 

“You’ve come back to me.” It has a voice like metal scraping against the inside of her skull. And yet it’s so familiar, too. “And now you’re mine.”

Ahsoka jumps to her feet, ’sabers held in crossed of her defensively. “You put a vision in my head,” she spits out, wishing she could spit out the memory of Anakin’s taste too. 

“It was more than a vision,” that awful voice hisses. “It was real.”

There’s the artificial, inhuman hiss of breath, then. And, in an instant, Ahsoka knows who the shadows belong to.

“Vader,” she gasps. “Why?”

“You know why.” The darkness advances on her, cape sweeping across the cave floor like smoke. “Look within yourself. I stitched that thread into your soul so long ago.”

Ahsoka doesn’t want to believe him and yet, when she does glance inwardly, she can see that thread of darkness woven into her soul. 

“Anakin,” she chokes out, eyes stinging with tears. Her mind rebels against the truth. She can’t accept it. _Refuses_ to. “No. _No_.”

The cave glows red as Vader brandishes his lightsaber before him. “Join me, Ahsoka,” he croons, his tone almost mocking. 

“Never.”

Ahsoka leaps at him, fangs bared. Their ’sabers clash in a blur of blood-red and bone-white.

Vader lashes at her with both his ’saber blade and dark energy, tearing at that seam in her soul. She imagines him rending her open and all the darkness he’s been feeding her spilling out on the cave floor. 

She thinks about three red berries and lips stained blood-red. 

“You cannot fight the truth, Ahsoka,” he sneers at her. “You know it to be true. You belong to me.”

“I’ll never join you.” Ahsoka fends off an onslaught of slashes and jabs, ducking and diving off to the right, just as his blade slices through ancient stone.

The ceiling starts to crumble, forming a barrier of broken stone between them. Ahsoka can still see a faint red glow between the cracks, though. 

“You gave yourself to me that night in the garden,” Vader hisses, his words slithering into her ears like Geonosian worms. 

Ahsoka extinguishes her lightsabers and clips them onto her utility belt. “It was a fantasy and nothing more,” she says, but the way her voice trembles betrays her. 

“Ah,” Vader says. “I won’t stop until I have you. I’ll chase you to the ends of the known universe.”

“And I’ll be ready for you when you come looking for me,” Ahsoka calls out. 

She turns and darts down a dark tunnel, leaving the faint, pulsing red glow of Vader’s lightsaber at her back. 

She trusts he’ll chase after her. And when he does catch up with her, she’ll be ready for him.


End file.
